full salvation in Christ. Let us turn in the word of God to the Apostle Paul's letter to Titus. Titus chapter 2 and we'll be reading from verse 11 to 14. Titus chapter 2 starting in verse 11. Let us hear the word of the living God. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. This is the word of God. The Lord has provided salvation. He has come for every tribe, tongue, language and nation to redeem for himself a special people. that He might redeem them from every lawless deed, to purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. We see here not only justification, but sanctification. Not only sanctification, but glorification. Here we see full salvation. Can we accept Jesus as our Savior without submitting to Him as Lord? I've heard that kind of question in various forms in numerous times over many years. There are people who want to condemn traditional Christianity as lordship salvation, as though there was any other salvation except that which comes from the Lord, Jesus Christ. It is quite disturbing that many could consider separating The Savior Jesus Christ from the Lord Jesus Christ, separating salvation from the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life. The Great Commission is not just to go out into all the world and make decisions, or converts, and it must start there. But it's to make disciples, teaching obedience to all things the Lord has commanded. How can the Great Commission be fulfilled without the Lordship of Christ in all areas of life being taught, believed, applied, propagated? It portrays an inadequate understanding of the problem of sin. It portrays an inadequate understanding of the nature of God. and of Christ's mission on earth and of our purpose in calling us Christians to question whether you need to submit to the Lordship of Christ when you accept your salvation. In fact, the word accept is not really in the Bible when it comes to salvation. You do read in Colossians that since you accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior. Now, continue with him as Lord. But that's speaking to people who have already been saved. But you don't read anywhere in the Gospels or the Book of Acts or even in the Epistles of an evangelist calling for people to accept Jesus as your personal Savior. That's a modern innovation. We read about surrendering to Christ, take up your cross, follow me. God now commands all men everywhere to repent. We read of a whole range of requirements, but accept has got to be the weakest word in the English language. In Afrikaans it's the same. seems an extremely weak term. It's not a biblical concept. The biblical concept is surrender to Christ, give your life to Christ, follow Christ, follow in his footsteps, take up your cross, forsake the world, and follow Christ. Would it have been adequate and sufficient for Moses to proclaim to the Hebrews, who were slaves in Egypt, that they should accept that in Yahweh they have perfect freedom? while leaving them in bondage, under the whip, in chains, so to speak, in slavery in Egypt. Surely anything less than deliverance from Egypt would have been inadequate. Anything less than freedom from the bondage of slavery would have been inadequate. God's eternal purposes required that the people of Israel, His people, survive the Passover by the blood of the Lamb. leave Egypt, cross through the Red Sea, and be established as a free people in the Promised Land? How else could Exodus have been fulfilled? Just telling them, you should consider yourself free, even though you're still being whipped and chained in slavery and you're still serving Pharaoh. What kind of salvation would that have been? Sin is serious. Our age is far too tolerant of sin. Sin is more defiling than dirt, more dangerous than an unexploded bomb, more life-threatening than a deadly disease, more insidious than any virus. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he'll have mercy on him. And try God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are Your ways, my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55 speaks about salvation that involves conviction, contrition, and conversion. Conviction of sin, a change of mind. Contrition for sin, a change of heart. Conversion, a change of life, a change of behavior, a change of conduct. Conviction, contrition, conversion. A change of mind, a change of heart, a change of life. We stop justifying our sin, we stop loving our sin, we stop doing the sin, we turn. 180 degrees turn. In the army, the commanders write about turn. It means 180 degree turn and you start going the opposite direction you were going. That is conversion. That is what we are meant to be involved in. We need to confront our problems. We have two major problems, sin and sins. I need forgiveness for my actions, for my sins. I need to be saved from the guilt of my sins. I need to be forgiven for what I've done. But that's not enough. My problem isn't just sins, but sin. my nature, what I am. I need deliverance from my nature of sin, which we have inherited from Adam. I need to be saved not only from the guilt of sin, justification, I need salvation from the power of sin, sanctification. I need to be saved not only for what I've done, the consequence of what I've done, I need to be saved from who I am, fallen creation. The Gospel declares us to a salvation that is past, present and future. I have been saved. I am being saved. I will be saved. If we are Christians and we have been saved, past tense, What have we been saved from? We've been saved from the penalty of our sins. We've been saved from the penalty of our guilt, our actions. We are fully forgiven. And that is what we're reading here in Titus. That He gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed. That's justification. And purify for Himself His own special people, sellers for good works. That is sanctification. Justification deals with a past tense, saved from the penalty, the guilt of my sins. Sanctification speaks about salvation from present continuous tense, from who I am, from my nature. Purifying for himself a special people, his own special people, zealous for good works. We will be saved, future tense, from the presence of sin in heaven when we will be eternally delivered even from the temptation or the presence of sin itself. Justification, sanctification, glorification. Past, present, and future tense. If we look at justification, we can see that the Son of God died instead of me for my forgiveness. This deals with my guilt. The legal word justification sums up the past tense of our salvation. Justification, which some call just as if I'd never sinned. Sanctification, Jesus Christ lives instead of me. He died instead of me, but he also lives instead of me for my deliverance. This is the present continuous tense of our salvation. The legal word justification is past tense. The sanctification, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, is an ongoing present continuous tense. Salvation is life transforming. Salvation is life changing. purifying for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. And in this glorification, one day, Jesus Christ will return to this world in glory. And he will raise the living and the dead. And in our new resurrection bodies, we'll be free from the very presence of sin in heaven. The future tense of our salvation is glorification. We have the blood of Christ, and we have the cross of Christ. The blood of Christ deals with what I've done. It cleanses us from our sins. The cross of Christ deals with who we are. It strikes at our very capacity for sin. And the return of Christ will deal with our very inclinations and temptations to sin, and even the very presence of sin itself. We are saved from sin. Sometimes you hear people saying they're saved, and without trying to be too obnoxious, we say, saved from what? because some people talk about being saved but in every sense they're still enslaved to the very things that they claim to be saved from. In a real sense we can speak about salvation being past tense, I have been saved. We can speak about present continuous tense, I am being saved. We can speak about future tense, I will be saved. In Christ's blood we have forgiveness because without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sins. In the cross we see the destruction of sin, for the Son of Man came for this very reason, to destroy the works of the devil. Christ did not come to make it easy for us to sin, safe for us to sin, that we can get away with it. Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us complete victory over Satan. We can overcome him. Over and over you see, especially in the letters to the seven churches of Revelation. To him who overcomes. At the cross Christ conquered sin and Satan, death and hell and the grave. In Christ we also have provision for holiness, because without holiness no one will see the Lord. And it certainly won't be our holiness, it will be the Lord's holiness, that He works in us and through us, through the work of sanctification, through His Holy Spirit. In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ we have the narrow door to life. The gate to heaven is near, it's narrow, and that gate is the cross. We cannot get to heaven without following Jesus. We have to go through the cross. The cross is a requirement for discipleship. Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. Christianity is all about Christ and following him, not following any particular person, pastor, denomination. It's following Christ. There is a way back to God from the dark paths of sin. There is a door that is open and we may go in. At Calvary's cross is where you begin when you come as a sinner to Jesus. I know a fount where sins are washed away. I know a place where night is turned to day. Burdens are lifted, blind eyes make to see there's a wonder working power in the blood of Calvary. Our salvation depends upon Christ's atonement. alone, never upon our feeble attainments. It is faith in the fact of Christ's finished work on the cross at Calvary, His shed blood. It's not my temporary feelings, it's not my emotions, it's not my feeble attempts. All our righteousness is as filthy rags before God. The precious blood of Christ can purify our conscience, redeem us, set us free, cleanse us from all sin, obtain forgiveness from sin, freedom from sin, sanctify us, transform us, give us complete freedom to go boldly into the presence of God and win for us the victory. as our passage says, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good works. Justification, sanctification, glorification. Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and life. We are lost. He is the way. We are deceived. He is the truth. We are dead in our trespasses and sin outside of Christ. He is the life. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This involves committed discipleship, following Christ's example because He is the way, consistent obedience, obeying Christ's teaching because He is the truth, and constant fellowship, abiding in Christ's love for He is the life. If my words abide in you and you abide in me, you can ask what you wish will be done for you, Jesus. This is the key verse for prayer, abiding in Christ, subject of one of Andrew Murray's books. We need to be attentive, we need to be obedient. When last did God speak to you? What did He say? Did you obey? If someone who did not know the Lord was following in your footsteps, doing what you're doing, reading what you're reading, going where you go, watching what you're watching, where do you find Jesus? What kind of example are you setting? God shows us a way, but remember, we must still do the walking. If we have a proper understanding of the problem of sin, then we will not be satisfied with anything less than full salvation, justification, sanctification, glorification. Not only forgiven for the penalty of sin, but freed from the power of sin, which is a present continuous daily struggle, fighting the good fight of faith, and winning the victory through the blood of Christ alone. This was one of the distinctives of the Protestant Reformation. The Protestant reformers pointed out that in Catholicism we have salvation in sin. They continue to do the same sins but they go to confession, they go to the mass, they get their slate white clean. They continue doing the same sins, they get salvation in sin. They get forgiveness apparently, according to the hocus-pocus of the priest and so on, and the formula of the Mass and Confession, but there's not necessarily a change of life, a transformation, you're not necessarily free from the power of sin, you continue to do the sins, and so the Reformers pointed out, Catholicism is vainly offering you salvation in sin. But the Gospel of Christ's Atonement, His finished work on the Cross of Calvary is pertained as a full salvation, past, present and future tense salvation of justification, sanctification and glorification where we are not only saved from the penalty of sin but from the power of sin and ultimately in heaven from the presence of sin. Israel could not fulfill their calling by remaining in bondage in Egypt. Neither can we effectively serve Christ today if we are conformed to the world in bondage to its sins, habits, addictions, and idolatries, attempting to accept the benefits of Jesus as Savior while denying His authority as Lord over all areas of our life. Jesus Christ is either Lord of all who is not really Lord at all. The only Savior is the Lord Jesus Christ. For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. who came Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Let us pray. We thank you, Lord Jesus, for who you are. We thank you for what you do. We praise you that you're the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You're the conqueror and you come again to judge the living and the dead. May it continue, Lord God, to help us to understand your word and to be faithful in applying it to every area of life. We pray this in Jesus' precious name. Amen.